UK strikes: Amazon workers hold first strike in Britain over pay, work conditions

Members of Amazon security keep an eye on members of the GMB union picketing outside the Amazon fulfilment centre in Coventry, England. Photo / AP

Amazon warehouse workers went on strike for the first time in Britain on Wednesday because of a dispute over pay and working conditions, adding to a wave of industrial labour action across the country fuelled by the soaring cost of living.

Union members voted to walk off the job for one day at the e-commerce giant’s fulfilment centre in Coventry, a city about 160km of London near Birmingham.

Amanda Gearing, a senior organiser with the GMB union, said Amazon staff who worked through tough conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic are just “trying to get decent pay”.

Another big issue is performance targets set by an algorithm that piles extra pressure on workers, she said.

Members of the GMB union. Photo / AP

The union is fighting for a bigger pay raise than the company’s offer, which it says amounts to an extra 50 pence (about $1) an hour.

Amazon, which operates 30 fulfilment centres in the United Kingdom, said 2000 workers are employed at the Coventry facility. The union says 98 per cent of those who took part in the vote decided to strike, and Amazon said that amounts to only 178 workers.

The company said it’s offering “competitive pay” starting at £10.50 to £11.45 ($22 - just over NZ minimum wage) an hour, depending on location. Amazon says that is a 29 per cent increase in the minimum hourly wage for employees since 2018.

Business at Seattle-based Amazon boomed during the pandemic but, like other tech companies, it has been reversing recent expansions as it faces economic uncertainty.

This month, it announced 18,000 layoffs.

Amazon staff are the latest group of British workers to join the picket lines as high food and energy prices drive the highest inflation in decades.

Nurses, ambulance workers, train drivers, border staff, driving instructors, bus drivers, teachers and postal workers have all walked off their jobs in recent months to demand higher pay amid the cost-of-living crisis.

Amazon routinely faces protests and walkouts from workers who want higher wages and better working conditions, including elsewhere in Europe, such as Spain and Germany.

Last year on Black Friday, a coalition of unions and advocacy groups coordinated walkouts in more than 30 countries under a campaign called “Make Amazon Pay”.

Organisers said they wanted the company to boost pay for hourly workers, extend sick leave and end its effort to fend off unionisation, among other things.

In October, the company suspended dozens of workers at a New York warehouse after many of them staged a protest and refused to return to their shifts following a trash compactor fire. - AP